This is a true story about Randolph, though, one that starred Tiago Splitter, Tim Duncan, Matt Bonner and even Boris Diaw as the resident bullies, and it has the Grizzlies forward gritting and grinding his teeth after an ominous sign in the opener. "That was the best defense I've seen on the big fella in a long time; they did a great job," said the Grizzlies' Mike Conley, who was outplayed in his point guard battle with the Spurs' Tony Parker. "He tried to apologize (in the locker room), and we wouldn't accept that. We said, 'It's not you; it's all of us.' He's just saying that he's going to do better, but we've all got to do better defensively, and offensively we've got to move the ball in order to get other guys open like Zach and play our game." Parker, who had eight of his 20 points in the first quarter in which San Antonio led by 17 points, said, "Yeah, we tried to make it hard on him (with a) double-team. Obviously, he's their best scorer. He's a beast inside. (But) we know he's not going to play like that every game."

It's not just the good job the Spurs did on Zach, but the beautifully executed backside help to deny the high-low with Gasol. That's where is gets so hard to guard Memphis. I was watching Manu and Green do a really good job of making sure that Marc Gasol saw them ready to help backside so that he was less willing to try the high-low when we were fronting Zach.

I've never seen the Spurs hit that weakside help so consistently with no mistakes. They shut down every single high-low opportunity that the Grizzlies had.